


Things Unknown But Longed For Still

by within_a_dream



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Getting Together, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-03 09:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13338273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: She couldn't have this. She didn't deserve this. Her trajectory ended at the barricades, her heart's blood pumping into Marius's arms, and she would do better to fade back into the alleys like a shade rather than continue to cling to Cosette's skirts with her corrupting hands.--Éponine survives the barricades and is thrust headfirst into emotions she'd rather forget.





	Things Unknown But Longed For Still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> Title from Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird". Thanks to T for the beta, and to Missy for such a lovely prompt for one of my favorite ships!

When Éponine awoke, she thought she must be in Heaven. Crisp and white sheets covered her, and her skin glowed clean in the sunlight. This comfort could only be the afterlife.

The first conflict to her hypothesis--in no way did she deserve Heaven. The second--her chest ached like nothing else, as did her hand. And surely Hell wouldn't be so bright.

A gasp from the doorway caught her ear. Éponine tried to turn to face the noise, but a stab of pain through her shoulder kept her pinned to the bed.

"You're awake!" The voice filtered slowly through Éponine's mind , pulling at memories she couldn't quite place…and then blonde hair and a perfectly worried face came into view, and she knew exactly who was speaking. "You don't need to sit up, you'll hurt yourself."

"Cosette," Éponine murmured, words grating like sand in her throat. "What am I…"

"You were shot." Cosette's voice quavered on the last word. She sat down in a chair beside the bed. "At the barricades. My father took you home; we weren't sure where else you would want to go."

That was the catch, wasn't it? Being here, lit by the glow of Cosette's perfect bourgeois generosity, made her skin crawl, but Éponine didn't have anywhere to go. She'd gone to the barricades that night half-hoping to die, to go out as a heroic sacrifice for the man she loved. Marius had held her as her vision went black and let her blood stain his hands. He had listened to what, by all rights, should have been her last words, and kissed her forehead like a brother when all she'd wanted was for a kind and good man to love her for once in her sorry existence.

"Marius!" Éponine remembered shots, and blood, and didn't remember Marius walking away.

"He's recovering with his family." Cosette's mouth tightened, and Éponine felt the uncharacteristic urge to take her hand. "Several of his bones are broken, and he took a bad blow to the head. He's been asleep these past weeks, but the doctor says it's better he be asleep than awake, it will hasten the healing."

Éponine _did_ take Cosette's hand at that, regardless of her fears, and Cosette squeezed her hand. Then the full extent of Cosette's words took hold. "These past weeks?"

"You had a fever. It only just broke last night. You've been in and out of wakefulness, but I'm not sure how much you remember of that?"

Éponine remembered nothing. _Weeks_ in Cosette's house, under Cosette's care, saying God knew what in her delirium. She realized for the first time what it meant that she was clean, hair brushed out and skin shining and clothed in a nightgown that sat loose around her body. Cosette had bathed and dressed her, or had watched while the servants did so. Cosette had seen her body full of scars and her ribs standing out, and had sat at her bedside while she tossed and turned and shouted, more than likely holding her hand and brushing her hair away from her face. It was too much kindness; Éponine had no chance of ever being able to pay it back, and worse, she resented it.

She was far too exposed here. She'd laid bare her soul to Marius, emboldened by her impending death, and then found that stolen away from her and her words left in the air. And now she was trapped in a pretty white cage by a woman who had every right to hate her, and who had heard her every fever dream for weeks.

"I'll let you rest." Cosette extricated her hand and stood, smoothing her skirts.

"Wait!" Éponine met Cosette's eyes for the first time that day. "You recognize me." It wasn't a question.

"I do."

There was so much more to be said, so much history hanging between them, but Éponine wasn't strong enough to say it. Her shoulder and hand and heart ached, and it would be easier to go back to sleep.

 

Recovery was soul-numbingly boring. Within a week, Éponine could take her meals out of bed. In two, she barely needed to lie down at all. That left vast expanses of day before her, too weak to go outside (and with nowhere to go if she could). Mostly, she sat in the parlor with Cosette, a table and a gap of a thousand miles between them. Some days Éponine embroidered (with fine linen and colorful thread, none of the slapdash hemming and darning she used to use to piece her clothes back together), her left hand wrapped in bandages holding the cloth and her right making clumsy stitches, not used to being a lady. Other days she read, squinting at the words and turning the pages humiliatingly slow, rereading twice and thrice to follow the threads of the plot.

Some days Cosette talked to her. Éponine loved and hated those conversations, the careful dancing around their shared past mixed with the heady rush of Cosette's genuine concern for her. 

She couldn't have this. She didn't deserve this. Her trajectory ended at the barricades, her heart's blood pumping into Marius's arms, and she would do better to fade back into the alleys like a shade rather than continue to cling to Cosette's skirts with her corrupting hands.

But she couldn't bring herself to leave. So they talked, about Éponine's health and Marius's health and nothing else of substance. Éponine sometimes shared stories of Marius, and Cosette shone with joy at hearing more about the man she loved. The man she'd barely spoken to, the worm of jealousy in Éponine's heart whispered, the man she might not have if it weren't for Éponine's intervention. The man who might steal Cosette away from her, the greedy part of Éponine murmured. Because she wanted Cosette, now that she'd been in her house for weeks. She wanted Cosette and she wanted Marius and she wanted to be the kind of girl who wore flowered dresses and embroidered in the parlor.

Better not to think too long on that.

 

Days stretched into weeks into a month since Éponine had woken up in a strange bed, and Marius slept still. Cosette worried for him, and if Éponine didn't know better, she would say Cosette worried for her too. The holes in her had closed over, the risk of infection near-gone, but she saw the way Cosette watched her dart around the halls like a frightened cat. Perhaps she was finally growing tired of Éponine. (It was bound to happen someday.)

One afternoon, they both pretended to read in the parlor. Cosette kept looking over the top of her novel at Éponine, and Éponine avoided her gaze and braced herself for what was to come.

"I don't blame you, you know." Of all the things Cosette could have said, Éponine wasn’t prepared for that. It took the tone of a confession, an apology. "You were a girl. You couldn't have stopped your parents."

"And the world turns, and now you're the one playing happy families with a ragamuffin in your parlor." Éponine smiled, harsh. "I would have thought you'd be happy to see me brought low."

"Never!" Cosette's eyes glistened with tears, and somehow Éponine had started crying too, without realizing. And with that, the dam broke. They talked until the fire burned itself out, crying and laughing and embracing one another. That night, Éponine returned to her room (it had finally begun to feel like _hers_ ) still not quite at home in the Fauchelevent house, but closer to belonging.

 

With the olive branch of friendship came new difficulties. Éponine still longed for Cosette, a fresher pain than her tamped-down love for Marius and thus harder to ignore. She fooled herself into seeing glimmers of affection in Cosette's eyes, the same sort of affection Cosette showed when discussing Marius's health.

It was foolish. The fever had gone to her brain. For Cosette to love Éponine (a woman, and a withered and cruel one at that) as she loved Marius—impossible.

It was still difficult not to daydream when Cosette took her hand, or smiled at her, or wrapped her in an embrace. In a different world, Éponine could be Cosette's Marius, or Marius's Cosette. In this one, she belonged in the shadows.

Cosette visited Marius thrice a week at least, although from what she told Éponine, he was barely sensible for most of those visits. He'd begun to stir almost a month to the day that Éponine had, but had spent nearly a fortnight drifting in and out of fever dreams.

"He asked for you," Cosette said after returning from a visit one evening. Éponine might have preferred the fever dreams.

She forced down the fear swelling in her stomach, and said, "There's something I should tell you."

 

And so she told Cosette everything about the night of her almost-death, and her life before. The longing for Marius and for normality came spilling out, and for a moment it all felt natural. "I love him. It isn't fair, and I'll never mention it again. You've been so kind to me, much kinder than I have any right to. But I thought you should know that I love him and I love y—"

Éponine caught herself on the precipice, her words about to tumble into the air. She thought she saw a flicker of understanding on Cosette's face, but the expression was so quickly schooled back into blankness that Éponine couldn't tell if she'd seen it or imagined it.

"You should come tomorrow. Marius wants to see you, and we should talk." Cosette reached out a hand to Éponine.

Éponine fled.

 

She went along with Cosette the next day after all, although she kept silent during the journey there. Cosette didn't speak either, although she took Éponine's hand as they entered the house. Éponine was grateful for the touch—she felt like an imposter, walking into a grand manor wearing a beautiful dress that hung off of her scrawny frame and her hair done up like a proper lady. She could feel the eyes of everyone they passed on her, and was acutely aware of the family members gathered around Marius's bed once she and Cosette reached his room.

Even after nearly two months of recovery, Marius looked half-dead. His eyes looked bruised with weariness, and an angry red line tore across his forehead. His leg sat wrapped in a bandage, stretched stiff across the bed. A woman beside him smoothed down the sheet beneath him, then adjusted the bindings on his leg.

"Ponine!" A grin lit up his face when he saw her, erasing some of the weariness. "Cosette told me you were all right, but I couldn’t believe it until I saw you for myself."

Éponine smiled back, returned to the shyness of a schoolgirl. "I'm glad you've turned the corner."

"We thought he'd left us for good," the old man by the bedside said. (It must be the grandfather Marius had told her about.) "Although if he had two girls like you waiting for him, I can see why he hung onto life. If left to his own devices, I'm sure he would have died just to spite me!" He let out a horrid little laugh. "Of course, you've let all of that foolishness go, haven't you, Marius?"

He didn't stop to let Marius answer, and would have kept talking for God knew how long if Marius hadn't shouted, "For God's sake, let me be for one moment! I swear I won't die while you're away."

It seemed for a moment as if Marius’s grandfather might object, but he left the room without speaking, and the woman followed.

Marius sunk back onto the bed, looking incredibly relieved. "I'm so glad you came, both of you."

"I told Cosette what I said to you, when I was shot." Éponine's words shattered the joviality. "I thought she should know. I can leave, if you both think that would be best."

"No one is leaving," Cosette snapped.

Marius looked between the two of them, biting his lip. "Where would you go? I couldn't turn you out."

"I won't come between you." Éponine steeled herself. "I'll be fine. I always am."

"No one is leaving!" It may have been the first time Éponine heard Cosette shout, even during their childhood. "My father has been telling me how young I am, how little I know of the world. And perhaps that's true. But I think I love you." She leaned down to kiss Marius. "And," she said, turning to Éponine, "I think I love you."

The kiss took Éponine by surprise. There was none of the poetry of her mother's romances, no birds singing or choirs of angels. There was only flesh meeting flesh, and a warmth growing in Éponine's chest.

"We are going to wait for you to recover, Marius, and we are going to make a life together. Because I think if I lost either of you, I'd be losing the best thing in my life." Cosette's fire cooled a bit, and she looked somewhat chagrined at her outburst. "That is, if you're amenable."

Marius let out a startled laugh. "I would like nothing better."

Éponine sank down to take a seat on the bed's edge, suddenly unsure if her legs would hold her. "I love you as well."

Cosette sat beside her, taking Éponine's hand and laying her other across Marius's shoulder. "I know."


End file.
